And Miles To Go Before I
by threedays
Summary: Ten years ago, Dean did what he had to do to keep his little brother safe. But now it's come back to haunt him ... in every sense of the word.
1. Sleep

**Author's Note: **I've decided it's time. After dabbling in Supernatural one-shots and vignettes, I've decided to write something with ... like ... a plot ... or something. Wish me luck!

This critter is set in Season One, when John's still out there somewhere. I've only seen three and a half seasons so far and it seemed safest to stick with the early stuff.

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><p><strong>And Miles To Go Before I<strong>  
><em><span>Chapter One<span>__: Sleep_

What I remember from _then_ is what my geek brother Sam would call sensory impressions: the smell of black coffee and run-over skunk, the worn warmth of Dad's hand on my shoulder, the grinding clatter of Sammy's voice from the back seat, spouting poetry he learned for an English teacher who wouldn't hear it, since we were never going back. The sight of rain in rivers down the windshield and the taste of terror slowly fading.

For hours and hours _after._

I ain't trying to dredge up _before_, and it stays more or less hidden.

_After _comes in bits and bursts. When I blink I see green mile markers flying past, and a dotted white line sliding back and forth underneath the tires. I can feel the leather under my fingernails as I gripped the edges of my seat, pushed breath past pursed lips, tried focus on the radio. Three Dog Night, _Mama Told Me Not To Come._

Dad never let go of my shoulder.

"Whose woods these are, I think I know …" Sam started again and his voice was all keyed up, the way it got before he crashed. I prayed that moment would come soon. In my current state, I wasn't sure how much more Robert Frost I could handle. Each time through, Sammy got faster, stumbled over the words a little more. The poem didn't make any sense at all now, mostly disjointed words and bungled syllabes spat at a psychotic rhythm,and Sam's voice sounded like my own mouth tasted – scared.

Dad was the only one calm.

Least I thought so then. It occurs to me now that Dad must only have been_ playing_ calm. Much like Sam's doing now, because he's trying to keep me from losing it entirely.

I hate being the one close to losing it. That's supposed to be my brother. Fuck.

"Dean." Sam brings me back – modern-day grown-Sam, not Robert-Frost-spouting Turbo-Sammy. "You okay, man?"

"I'm fine." Heels of my hands grinding into my forehead and my eyes screwed shut. Sam volunteered to drive this stretch of road, for obvious reasons. I try not to draw his attention to me because I want his full focus on my car and its well-being. Not on me and my girly-ass nervous breakdown.

But nothing doing. Sam's onto me.

"Hour or two, this'll be over," he says, like it's nothing, except I hear the tiny catch in his voice. Makes sense, too. He was there, right at the center. He saw. He even blamed himself, probably still does. He's getting wound up a little, even now at the age of 22, and I think of 12-year-old Sam's voice rambling: "He will not see me stopping here to watch his woods fill up with snow …" while Cory Wells competed: _"That ain't no way to have fun, son …"_

I thought it wouldn't affect me.

I was sixteen and full of hot air and I thought I could do … what I did … and it wouldn't mean anything. Sucked while it was happening and then it was over. It wasn't till we all made it in the car, it wasn't till the car started booking down the highway, it wasn't till mile marker 19, 18, 17 that it started to sink in.

_This will never be over._

I peek one eye open and I see the mile markers slipping away. 28. 27. 26. Won't be long till we hit 21, where, ten years ago on a December night, I committed the only out-and-out murder I ever care to.

_After – _which is what I think about to keep from thinking about _before –_ my dad drove us as fast as he could down the highway, shimmying on black ice while I breathed through the panic and breathed through the panic, and my little brother repeated in a voice like bottles smashing, "Miles to go before I sleep …"


	2. Arrive

**And Miles To Go Before I …  
><strong>Chapter Two: Arrive

_November 1995  
><em>

_Smiling Pine Motor Lodge  
>Extended Stay Suite 8<br>Highway 880  
>Rural Virginia<em>

Sam

On the saddest of days, Dad hardly looks at us. Loses himself in research or weapons cleaning or strategizing a hunt or scribbling in his journal. If there is food, Dean cooks it. If there is laughter, it dies quick.

But on the _very_ saddest of days, Dad hardly does anything _but_ look at us. The journal's next page stays blank and the next hunt stays unplanned and the books stay closed and the weapons stay dirty. And there is take-out for dinner and there is too much laughter and it is forced. Like on this one day a year, Dad wants to pretend we're a regular family. Like maybe Mom's watching.

I doubt that. I've done enough reading – Dad's not the only one who can research – to know there are too many wild cards when it comes to the afterlife. Mom could be all sorts of things. All sorts of things we hunt used to be people's moms.

This year's November 2 starts out the same as all the rest, with my dad acting loopy and trying to make us breakfast, except he's out of practice and there aren't any eggs and he burns the toast. While he leans over the trash can, swearing and scraping off the black parts, Dean turns off the burner Dad forgot he turned on and checks the expiration date on the milk.

Dean would die on the spot if I ever told his school friends how handy he is in the kitchen. (Pardon. Kitchen_ette._) I would do it in a heartbeat except then he would stop making me omelets, which, while we're on the subject, is the reason we're out of eggs. Only six at a time will fit in the mini-fridge, and the way Dean makes an omelet, it takes three.

That's the difference between Dean and my dad. Dean makes sense. He learned to make omelets because I like omelets. They don't have to be scheduled. With Dad - who annually burns something, swears, gives up, and orders take-out – it doesn't much care what anyone likes. He does what he thinks he's supposed to do on November 2 to prove he's glad we didn't die in a fire.

Family of freaks, is what we are.

When the smoke from the toaster dies down, and Dad reaches for the phone, I smirk. We're in the northwestern hills of Virginia and it's six in the morning. There isn't going to be any places taking orders at this hour. Sure enough, moments later Dad has slammed the phone back into its cradle and is looking around the kitchenette like he doesn't know what to do next. Dean takes over, silently guiding our lunatic father through the motions of making pancakes.

I want to scoff. This whole pointless exercise is so ridiculous and stupid. Except as he deals with Dad, Dean's got that weird expression on his face he usually only gets when I'm hurt. So I let it go and eat the damn pancakes.

I guess November 2 ought to mean more to me. I mean, twelve years ago I was a normal kid who had a normal brother and two parents and a crib and a nursery and a _house._ Dean says it was a real house with stairs and everything. And a _whole_ kitchen without an "_ette."_

And twelve years minus fourteen hours ago I became a kid with a broken dad, and a brother who shouldn't be able to cook, but can, and a string of motel fold-out beds, and endless kitchens with an unwanted suffix.

I'm going to be glad to get to school today, out of sight of my dad's sad, guilt-filled eyes.

I fight Dean for shotgun even though I have never won that argument in my whole twelve years. In the back seat, sporting an indian burn and some messed-up noogie hair, I tug at my worn backpack so I can triple-check my homework, and the zipper splits. Crap. It figures. Now I'm going to have to lug all my books into the school in my arms, and I'll have to leave the pleasure reading in the car because I can't lift everything –

_Whap!_

"Hey!" I react with a screech before I figure out what hit me.

"Fine, don't take it," Dean says, and starts to take back the backpack he's just thrown at me.

"No … wait …" I reach for the bag but stop. "Don't you need it?"

He shrugs, flashes one of those wide grins that makes me want to smack him but that he says makes the girls swoon (which actually, for reasons that are a mystery to me, seems to be true). "Nah, it's empty."

I scoff. "Figures." But I don't say it quite loud enough for him to hear. I don't want to lose the backpack. Tossing my books into Dean's not-nearly-as-worn-as-mine-even-though-they're-the-same-age satchel, I toss my mangled pack to the front. "For show," I explain. "It'll serve the same purpose as your old one."

He grins at me again, this time a more real, brother-type grin – the kind he uses when I've genuinely amused him. I can work at it for six months and do nothing but annoy him, and then I say something off-hand without even thinking that it's funny and he gives me that look. Strange one, my brother, but I can't help but be pleased even if I wasn't going for a laugh.

Dad hasn't spoken since the pancakes, which is odd, since November 2 is usually a ramble-until-me-and-Dean-want-to-tear-our-hair-out day. Grief for most people involves quiet anguish or depressed silence. My dad gets manic. Like, for just one day, he's got to be both parents to us. Instead of the rest of the year, when he's neither.

I've been mad at my dad for, like, weeks, and I'm not even really sure why. But for just a second, catching a glimpse of his face in the rearview mirror, I want to spring forward and hug him around the neck like I used to when I was five. Of course I don't. I probably don't fit right anymore, plus Dean would never let me live it down. But I want to.

Dad pulls up to the middle school and I get the double-stare from him and Dean.

"Be good," Dad says, which is a vague enough statement that it usually prompts me to taunt, "At what?" There are a lot of answers: shooting, tracking, research, sparring, dodging. Nobody in the front half of this car ever mentions schoolwork.

Today's November 2, so I replace my usual retort with a nod, and Dean looks relieved before he smirks at me. "Mind your step, there's gravity out there," he says, referencing yesterday's less-than-graceful exit from the car, during which I managed to catch my left foot on my right foot and land in a heap at the feet of my favorite teacher, Mrs. Honaker.

"Shut up," I snap, displaying my usual brilliant wit. Lately I can't seem to get my words together in time to respond to Dean the way I want, and the perfect comeback never makes itself clear to me until well after my brother's out of sight. I figure today will be one of those days as I slam the door of the Impala and watch it roar away.

As my dad and brother's vehicle fades into the pre-dawn fog, I catch sight of Mrs. Honaker again. She's oddly close. I thought she was further away. At first I'm glad to see her. She's one of the earliest teachers here and I'm one of the earliest students and sometimes she sneaks me into the teacher's lounge and lets me study in the comfy chairs. I start to lift my hand in a wave.

And then she gets closer still and something makes my heart start pounding and I taste pancakes rising in my throat. I scramble back toward the curb, but by now the Impala is nothing but tail lights.

_Something's wrong here._

I don't know what – I'm looking at Mrs. Honaker and she looks fine, she looks _fine,_ but something is wrong here. I know it like I knew that wendigo was going to cut right, not left, that time in Kentucky. I know it like I knew there was a second vampire behind the first, that night in Michigan. I know it like I know that November 2 isn't the same as other days, no matter how much hell I give my dad for acting weird. I know in my gut that _something's not right_ and I want my dad and my brother to come back, to help me figure out what it is that's got my instincts kicked up to high gear and my heart hammering and my breath stuck somewhere between my rib cage and my throat.

But I'm alone.

Except for Mrs. Honaker, who, as she closes the distance between us, reaching out to me through the grim dawn breaking, suddenly looks anything but _fine._


	3. Quit

**A quick apology: **I suck at writing action scenes, but this is a writing exercise for me. I want to practice writing stories where something actually happens. So this does not flow that well, and I'm not that happy about it, but my goal is to post one chapter per day and some of those chapters actually have to have, like, content, instead of just chick-flick moments. I hope it's enjoyable and that you won't judge me too harshly. I'm a firm believer that practice makes ... well, maybe not perfect, but better. So I'm going to keep practicing.

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><p><strong>And Miles To Go Before I<strong>  
>Chapter Three: Quit<p>

_December 2005_

_Highway 880 North  
>Mile Marker 25<br>Rural Virginia_

Dean

Sam's at least five miles above the limit. Any more than that, I usually make him pull over. Kid's such a priss about breaking the speed limit, you'd think we actually have to pay the tickets we get instead of handing over a fake ID and having done with it. On the rare occasions he actually speeds, it means one of two things: he's had too much to drink or he's scared about something.

There ain't been a bar in miles.

"Sam."

"What?" A little more tersely than usual. I realize it's maybe not the first time I've said his name.

"You wanna ease up, try not to crash my baby?"

He eases off the accelerator by a quarter of an inch. "God, that is such a weird sentence out of context."

I grunt in response. He's got us back down to the speed limit, but he's not giving any more than that. We're at mile marker 24 and the wind's picking up and I wouldn't admit it in a hundred years, but I'm nervous as hell. If I was the one driving, we'd be in West Virginia by now. Fear makes my foot weigh a ton. Apparently the same is true for Sam.

I sit back, try to relax into the rhythm of the Impala, try to ignore the building panic and the urge to hide my face like a little kid. I don't dare look out the windows. When I look out the windows, I think I see things in the trees. I remember blood and screaming. I remember pleading eyes on mine, right before I killed that woman. This is so fucked. Salt and burns aren't supposed to be this hard. This personal. Then again, most of the ghosts we dispatch, I wasn't the one who made 'em ghosts in the first place.

I can feel Sam glancing at me - I'd just as soon he keep his eyes on the road, dammit – and just when I'm about to say something about it, the radio springs to life all on its own.

Well, shit.

"That's not good," Sam mutters, and eases off the gas again.

"No, don't slow down," I say in a rush. "Keep going, get through it."

He lets out a girlish sigh. "You just told me to slow down."

My voice comes out rough, a little louder than usual but not quite a yell. "Well, now I'm telling you to speed up again, Sam!"

He sighs again and gets us back up to five over. I try to turn off the radio and it doesn't so much as change volume. The blasting static of the commercial ends and I hear the opening bars of a Three Dog Night song.

Holy shit.

"Sam –"

But his voice comes back, orders of magnitude louder than I expect. "Hang on!"

I snap my eyes forward to find out what it is that's got Sam shouting all of a sudden, and I see a mile marker sign looming right in front of us as we fly off the edge of the highway. I ought to be more worried about the fact that we're crashing – and about my car, oh, hell, my _car – _but all I can think is, _What the hell, that sign says 21, we were at 25, there's no way we went four miles in the time it took Cory Wells to ask, "Want some whiskey in your water?"_

As Wells asks about sugar in tea, Sam curses and we smack the mile marker sign and plow it over. The windshield cracks, but doesn't shatter, and Sam keeps from jerking the wheel even though I can tell it's a battle. We come to a bone-jarring halt against a muddy bank – thankfully – instead of one of the giant trees lining the highway. For half a second I can't breathe, can't think. I can hear my heart pounding, or maybe it's Sam's. My knees throb from connecting with the dash board and my brain's fuzzy and I'm sick of this friggin' Three Dog Night song.

My voice grinds out in a panic, "Sam? You all right?"

"Yeah," he pants, breathless. I manage to get myself together, turn to look at him. He's looking back at me, still gripping the steering wheel, foot still jammed on the brake. "You okay?"

The radio quits. Along with the rest of the car.

Shitty shit shit.

"Don't know that I'd use the word 'okay,'" I manage, struggling with my door. "Come on, let's look at the damage." I'm so scared to climb out of the car, to stand here at mile marker 21 after all these years, that I have to do it right this second or I won't do it at all. This friggin' case is turning me into a girl. Or into Sam, I can't help but add mentally, testing my ability to be funny, because if I can still be funny, all is not lost.

Sam obediently begins to struggle with his seatbelt and I groan when I hear the shriek of metal as he opens his door. My poor baby.

We make it three steps from the car before I see the sign we hit – mile marker 24, not 21 – and behind us, the radio springs to life again. This time some NPR shit, some literary show, Sam's type of crap, not mine, and for a second I'm relieved, because if the radio's on, that means the car's okay and we can drive out of here. Okay, we're okay. This is not mile marker 21 and we're okay and the damage to the car doesn't even look that bad. I struggle for breath, for calm.

"We're okay," I tell Sam over waves of panic and the more sensible half of my brain, which is screaming, _This is not okay this is not okay THIS IS NOT OKAY_. "We're okay, this isn't that bad, okay. Okay."

When he doesn't answer – doesn't scoff like I expect – I look toward him, and the look on his face is one of disbelief. And terror. He is looking toward my car. I look, but I don't see anything that wasn't there two seconds ago.

"What?" I ask. When he still doesn't answer, I prompt, "I know, it sucks that you just wrecked my baby, and, believe me, we're going to have words about that later. But, Sam. What …"

It's like somebody spun the volume knob on the radio. Even though the Impala has quit, the engine off, the headlights dark, the radio kicks up loud enough for me to hear what's got Sam in a tizzy.

"… the woods are lovely, dark, and deep, but I have promises to keep …"

"Oh, shit."

This is definitely _not okay_.

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><p><strong>Don't worry! We'll go back to 1995 and check on Sammy in the next chapter! *Cue annoying Back to the Future music*<strong>


	4. Escape

**We all hanging in there? Thanks for the reviews and follows! **

* * *

><p><strong>And Miles to Go Before I<strong>  
>Chapter Four: Escape<p>

_November 1995_

_Thomas Edison Middle School  
>Northwestern Virginia<em>

Sam

While my algebra teacher's advancing on me with the whites of her eyes gone black – right about the time I realize Mrs. Honaker has left the building –_ this_ is when the perfect comeback to Dean pops into my head. When he taunted me about gravity, I could have told him, "At least somebody _finds_ me attractive."

Okay, it's not the _best_ comeback. Still. It's better than "Shut up."

I mean, this probably isn't the best time to think about it.

Mrs. Honaker is wearing a tan sweater with little maple leaves embroidered on it. She's wearing polyester pants with creases from the iron. She's wearing dress shoes that come to a point in the front, with pantyhose visible at the ankle because her pants are an inch too short.

And she's wearing a demon. Or I guess it's wearing her. My wildly panicking mind lands on, _Shouldn't have bothered studying for that algebra test,_ and I make a mental note to get my head examined when this is all over. Assuming I still have a head when this is all over.

"Good morning, Sam," she says, in her own voice, sounding like plain ol' Mrs. Honaker. I glance to her too-pink lipstick and then back up to her eyes. But now they're regular eyes, brown and white, nothing black except the pupil and even that's small.

"Um … uh …" Again. I'm sure the perfect thing to say will hit me as soon as demon-lady has made her departure from me. Assuming demon-lady makes her departure from me. Oh, holy heck, I hope demon-lady makes her departure from me!

"'Um … uh …'" she mimics. "Now, that's not the articulate boy I've come to know. The boy who is so lively in our class discussions."

"You're my – you're my algebra teacher. We don't _have_ class discussions." I'm torn between playing along with her little charade and bolting frantically toward the empty corner where my family's car disappeared. I wouldn't make it two steps; she could stop me without even wrinkling her sweater. This is something I know about demons. But the instinct is almost overwhelming. I give my dad and brother a lot of grief, but up against a demon, there's nobody I'd rather have at my back.

Or better yet, my front.

"Sam, are you feeling all right?" Not-Mrs.-Honaker asks, playing the role of concerned math teacher. "You aren't acting quite like yourself, young man."

"I'm – I'm fine, ma'am," I mutter, deciding that playing along is the safest thing for now.

"Are you certain? You look a little pale. Would you like to lie down on one of the comfy chairs in the teacher's lounge? Maybe rest until the first bell? I would make sure you weren't disturbed."

_Yeah, right! As if I want to let you get me all alone!_ I'm scared to death, but mildly comforted by the fact that other teachers are starting to arrive. I clutch Dean's backpack in my arms, between me and the demon, and shake my head. "N – no, thanks, ma'am, I'd better get to – I'd better get going."

"Sam, you know that if something's wrong, you can talk to me about it. That's what I'm here for, son."

"Don't call me son." The reaction is strong, sudden, vehement. I don't expect it – backtalking a demon is not high on my list of good ideas – but I can't help myself. Maybe another day, I'd swallow the words, but today's November 2. I am the son of only two people, and one and a half of them are dead.

Mrs. Honaker smiles slowly enough that I think maybe she wants me to know she's not really my teacher. But when she speaks, her words are innocent. "Sorry, Sam. I didn't mean to overstep my bounds. It's just that you're such a … _promising_ … student. I hate to see you wasting your potential."

Well, ick. _That's_ not something you ever hear from a demon.

"Excuse me, but I have some things I need to do," I say, hoping she'll keep up the charade if I do the same. I need to get away from her so I can call the high school, get ahold of Dean. He ought to be there by now. I start walking toward the school and suddenly Mrs.-Definitely-Not-Honaker snakes out her hand and grabs my wrist. Her palm is cool and her nails press little horseshoes into my skin. My head starts hurting and I can't help but think of ugly things, of screams and heat and flashing lights, of blood and smoke and griefstricken fathers. I want to pull away, but Mrs.-Opposite-of-Honaker has a grip like iron.

"Child," she says. "You have a lot of things you need to do. That's why I'm here."

"You don't need to concern yourself with what I'm doing." The words are brave, more Dean or Dad than me.

"Aww, Sammy," she says. "You offend me. You ought to be grateful I've taken such an interest in you as a … pupil."

I look her in the eye, set my jaw, refuse to look away. I know direct honesty works on teachers. What the hell? Maybe it works on demon-teachers, too.

"I know what you are," I say.

She smiles mildly, like I've asked for the hall pass. "Oh, I doubt that." And she lets me go. As I stand on the sidewalk, rubbing the handprint on my wrist, she adds over her shoulder, "Don't be late for math class, Sam. Remember we have a test today. It's a major grade. High stakes, you know." And she walks away like nothing ever happened and my stupid mind spits out, _Okay, it _is _a good thing I studied for that algebra test._

And then common sense kicks in and I'm running down the road as fast as I can toward the high school.


	5. Catch Up

**And Miles To Go Before I**  
>Chapter Five: Catch Up<p>

_November 1995_

_Benjamin Franklin High School  
>Northwestern Virginia<em>

John

They call it the calm before the storm – that moment when the wind is still and the dark clouds cease their swirling and the animals stop in their tracks to stare at the horizon. Animals can sense before people that something big is coming.

Well, animals and _hunters _can.

Dean doesn't want to go to the school, and I don't blame him. Ever since we dropped off Sammy at the middle school, we've both been looking over our shoulders, tapping our fingers, clucking our tongues, glancing out the windows. We've both been feeling the storm coming on and I know I speak for Dean and me both when I say we want our youngest in our sight.

Whatever is coming, I wish it didn't have to come _today._

On this day, more than any other, I want to give my boys a little peace. Let them be kids for a day, like they were_ that_ day - before the sun set, before we put the baby to bed in the nursery and tucked Dean into his big boy bed and let the last daylight Mary would ever see fade to black.

I've wished a million times I could go back to that twilight and take them all out for a drive. To the movies. Late-night ice cream in November, something only a crazy young father would do. Dean wouldn't have questioned me, and Mary would have laughed and shaken her head and asked if I was feeling all right, but she would have gone along with it. If only I'd had some inkling, some glimmer, that something big was on the way.

But I wasn't a hunter yet.

It wasn't unheard-of for our little family to do something goofy, like ice cream on a November night. We did a lot of strange things. Evening walks for snowcones. Dancing in the dark. None of us ever liked to be apart, even for sleep. Before Sammy was born, me and Mary used to take Dean to the park after hours and push him in the baby swing. There he was, all of two, awake past his bedtime, swinging up to meet the stars.

But then Sammy had come, and we were _tired._

So that day, before it was all the way dark, the boys were bathed and kissed and dressed in their pajamas, and our little family was a tangle of sleepy parents and rumpled teddy bears and bedtime stories and glasses of water.

Now we are the glint of steel as a knife is unsheathed, a handful of salt, a bullet made of silver. There is nothing soft or sweet about us now. Still. On this day, once per year, I try to slow us down a bit – like catching a speeding train with a butterfly net – and give us time to breathe. In Mary's memory.

This is not going to happen today.

I know before we reach the high school that I won't make Dean go in. Instead we circle the block, back to the middle school, pass it slowly, looking for trouble. The wind picks up right as my eyes catch a figure in the distance, and before I can speak, Dean says tensely, "Dad, is that – is that Sam?"

My boot clunks almost to the floor and the car snarls at the mistreatment, loud enough that my youngest son turns, even though he is still more than half a block away. Even from here, I can see the relief on his features, a twist of terror still evident, eyes dark. Dean sits up straighter and taps his hand on the dashboard.

The wind grows stronger still.

I push the car faster and Sam starts running back toward us, waving an arm as if we haven't seen him. Dean's got his door open before the car stops moving and I wedge us against the curb, jumping out of the vehicle but leaving it running.

"D –" Sammy is gasping for breath and the D could stand for either Dad or Dean. He leans over a second, places his hands on his knees, then springs himself back up standing. "D – Demon."

_Shit._

"Where?" In a heartbeat I am once again the glint of steel, a flash of silver. There is no room for soft. There is no room for ice cream or baby swings or November nights or even stars. I am a hunter.

"My algeb – algebra teacher." He's still panting. Boy's trained better than this, a simple run shouldn't have left him out of breath. It occurs to me that fear must be playing a part in his gasping and I wonder just how close the demon got, and how he got away. If I were still a real, whole person instead of a hunter, the feeling I squash into the darkest edge of my perception would be called panic.

"Mrs. Honaker?" Dean questions and I wonder briefly how he knows this. But Dean has always been better at tuning into Sam's rambles than have I.

"She says there's a –" _Gasp._ "—a test today. With high – stakes. I think she's gonna – she's gonna – I think I'm supposed to be there."

I jerk my chin toward the running car. "Get in."

Dean starts forward, but Sam doesn't move, so Dean stops.

"Dad, we – we have to go back," Sam pants.

"Sam –" Dean starts.

"Algebra is second period. 8:50. There's not much time." He starts walking backward, shuffling steps toward the middle school, where the clouds are the darkest. "She's gonna – who knows what she might –I have to be there."

"Sam, I don't want you anywhere near that school."

Sometimes I regret bringing the boys up with honor. Though he's never cared for hunting, now Sam shakes his head so hard his hair flops into his eyes. "No, Dad, I have friends in there! She told me to be there! If I'm not, she might hurt somebody, she might – who knows what she might –" Boy still can't catch his breath.

"Sam, breathe," Dean says. And the boy calms somewhat at this, but he doesn't take his eyes off me, and I can feel Dean looking at me as well. Pleading. _Don't let my brother go in there, Dad. Do something. _ I look from the boys to the school, which is full of innocent children whose families might still go out for ice cream in inclement weather. It starts to rain and I hear distant thunder.

"Dad, please …" Sammy whispers as lightning splits the sky. And Dean meets my gaze, unblinking. _Dad, please …_

_Shit._

My gut tells me this storm is going to be a bad one.

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><p><strong>We'll pop in on grown Sam and Dean in the next chapter, see how 2005's treating them. Hopefully better than when we left them!<strong>


	6. Hear

I know, I know - so much for a chapter a day, right? Sorry about that! I've been sick, and I didn't want to subject you guys to sick-rambles. Plus the computer screen is really bright and I was mostly hiding under a pillow.

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><p><strong>And Miles to Go Before I …<strong>  
>Chapter Six: Hear<p>

_December 2005_

_Highway 880  
>Mile Marker 24<br>Rural Virginia_

Dean

The freakiest freakin' part of this whole freakin' thing? Is that after we finally get the Impala pushed back out of the snow and sweet-talked into starting – and after Sam's finished busting up the radio with the butt end of his gun and I'm so freaked out by Robert Freakin' Frost I don't even stop him from abusing my baby – all at once I feel a warm, rough, heavy hand settle on my shoulder – and it ain't Sams.

Holy _shit._

I've just climbed behind the wheel (because no way is Sam driving after he crashed my girl, ghost or no ghost) and I have to keep my eyes on the road, but damn if that hand don't feel familiar. Now, maybe Dad ain't answering his phone and maybe I don't got the first clue where he's disappeared to, but I know he's okay. I know he's out there. Would know if he wasn't, you know?

So why does it feel like the disembodied hand suddenly gripping my shoulder is the same one that held onto me ten years ago on this very stretch of road?

Mile marker 23.

And it ain't even my right shoulder, the one toward Sam. No, it's my left, the one that Dad gripped all those years ago as we hightailed it the hell out of dodge after I watched life fade from Hattie Mathis's dying eyes. After I pried my cold brother from her dead hands that were still warm.

After mile marker 21.

Bitch was going to kill him, is the thing. Had it in her head he was something evil. I wanted _her_ to be evil. I wanted her to be possessed like the others, because a thing possessed is a thing I'm allowed to kill. It's sad when it's a human that's possessed. It's regrettable. But sometimes it happens and there ain't no getting around it. Most times they're dead in there anyway.

But Hattie? No demon there. She was just crazy. Regular old human crazy. Convinced her daughter's death was Sam's fault. Convinced that when Sam walked back into the school on the twelfth anniversary of our mother's violent death, he was _leading_ the demon, not following.

I didn't have a choice. I _didn't. _If I hadn't done what I did, it would be _Sam_ haunting mile marker 21, still twelve years old and having missed out on – missed out on –

I slam the door on that avenue of thought, but I can't help a few images slipping out. Hunts gone wrong. Fights with dad. Fire and smoke and a girl on the ceiling. Fuck those thoughts. Alive is better than dead. Period. Anyway, _I'd_ have missed out on my brother. I couldn't have lived with myself if I _hadn't _killed Hattie to save Sam.

Still, there is guilt, and every tree we pass looks like it's moving in a violent wind, although there is no accompanying sound. I get the impression that maybe this is what it would have been like to be inside Hattie Mathis's head, looking out through grief-crazed eyes. Everything changing. Everything dark.

Mile marker 22.

My brain screams, _Too close, tooclosetooclose!_

Is it crazy I'm _grateful_ for the disemboedied hand on my shoulder? I mean, it's not like it's Dad's. I know whose it is. I know it's a friggin' ghost messing with my head, trying to make me think it's 1995 and not ten years later. Trying to make me think I'm still a sixteen-year-old kid with a chip on his shoulder and a brother to protect and _no_ earthly damn clue how you will smell the blood in the air for _weeks_ if the thing you kill is human.

I'm pressing the brake. I can't help it. I don't want to reach mile marker 21. I don't want to get to the place where we left the body, salted and burned and tucked in a shallow grave. I don't want to dig through ten years of dead leaves and regret, looking for the thing we missed. Because we must have missed something, or she wouldn't be a ghost.

"Dean."

The way Sam says my name, I know it isn't the first time. "Yeah?"

"You okay?"

"Yeah."

He pauses. Then, "So why are you driving like a grandma, dude?"

My eyes slip to the speedometer and back up to the road. I press my foot on the gas. Well, not so much "press" as "lightly graze." We climb from 20 to 27.

"Dean."

I growl at my brother. "All _right!"_ And crank us faster, and just as we hit 50, the radio – the _broken_ radio – springs to life in a burst of static. I swerve and it takes a minute to get us back on track. I'm not supposed to be this freakin' jumpy, man. This ain't right. I let loose with a string of swear words and the radio decides it's gonna ratchet up the volume to drown me out.

But – _holy FUCK - _but this time it ain't Three Dog Night or Robert Frost on the radio. This time it's a voice I remember, a voice that still wakes me on December nights. I think it would be better if she sounded mutinous or murderous or any of the emotions I'd expect from an angry spirit hotwiring a broken Impala radio. But instead she sounds – she sounds –

"_God,_ that's sad," Sammy whispers, and I hear echoes of a traumatized twelve-year-old spouting poetry when there's nothing left to say.

"Yeah." My voice _doesn't _shake, I swear.

The voice of Hattie Mathis wails through the radio, screaming for her daughter and screaming for her daughter, before cutting off abruptly, along with the Impala's engine. Me and Sam lock gazes as the car drifts to a rocking halt against piles of filthy snow marked with the errant tire tracks of overloaded coal trucks. We haven't wrecked this time, we're just dead on the shoulder next to a mile marker sign.

_The_ mile marker sign.

The radio's quiet, but I still hear the screaming. I think it's in my head, but then Sam starts looking for it too. It's a sound of pure despair and it is coming from the woods. _Her_ woods. The woods we left her in. The woods where somebody innocent has died every December since we last drove this way.

"Whose woods these are, I think I know …" Sam whispers against the unearthly screams rising in the night.

"Shut the fuck up, dude," I hiss.


End file.
